NORCO: The chemicals turn up in groundwater and soil in an area where
thyroid cancer cases occurred.

By PAIGE AUSTIN
Riverside Press-Enterprise (CA)
March 12, 2005

State officials have found cancer-causing chemicals in the groundwater
and soil beneath the same Norco neighborhood where a string of thyroid
disorders and cancers prompted residents to demand an investigation
almost two years ago.

The underground plume of contamination, which is within a half-mile of
Norco High School and Norco Intermediate School, has spread farther into
the community and at higher levels than state officials investigating
the contaminated Wyle Labs property originally thought.

At the time, Wyle and state officials insisted that pollution could not
have reached so far away from the hazardous-testing facility, which
closed in late 2004.

Over the past two years, dozens of Wyle neighbors have blamed the lab's
pollution for their health problems, even though regulators have not
found a link between the contamination pollution and the cases of cancer
and thyroid disease.